DEAD LEAVES (2004) Review

Directed by: Hiroyuki Imaishi

Starring (voices): Kappei Yamaguchi, Takako Honda, Yuko Mizutani

I really had no idea what to expect when I sat down to watch DEAD LEAVES and even after letting it all soak into my brain for a couple of days I still don't have a clear idea of what the hell just happened. I'm not the biggest anime fan in the world but I've seen my fair share and I can say without hesitation that I've never seen anything quite like DEAD LEAVES, both in terms of what goes down on screen and it's animation style.

Pandy (a young woman with a bad case of Heterochromia) and Retro (a dude with a television head) awaken completely naked with absolutely no idea of who the are, where they are or what they are doing there. So naturally they team up, go steal some clothes and a car and start shooting up the city before robbing a bank and then leading approximately a billion cops on a high speed chase, destroying as much as they can in the process. But their crime spree soon comes to an end and they find themselves on route to a prison on the Moon where they are suited up in straight-jackets and thrown in a cell. Pandy and Retro soon free themselves from their shackles by having sex (yes you read that right; sex!) and gather all of the prisoners in a frenetic, fast paced escape attempt. Along the way Pandy and Retro unlock the secret behind their mysterious past and the reason why the prison seems so familiar to them.

It's clear to see that the filmmakers didn't waste any time on a deep story or characterization, which is made most apparent when their mysterious past is explained in a ridiculous 15 second monologue. Normally this kind of seemingly lazy, throwaway explanation would get negative points from me but I was too busy trying not to have an epileptic seizure to really notice any of the weak plot points. Besides a strong story is definitely not the film's strong point, nor is it meant to be.

I always hear people talking about how good certain movies are to watch when you're high. Well DEAD LEAVES is the kind of film that will leave you feeling like you're on an acid trip no matter how sober you are. It's hard not to imagine the writers and animators producing this after a particularly strong batch of shrooms. It's pretty darn difficult to describe the animation style here but if I was pushed I guess I would say that it's like what I'd imagine if Spongebob and Patrick went on a crazy, violent, drug-fuelled crime spree. There are so many bright colors and the scenes chop and change so quickly it almost makes your head spin.

DEAD LEAVES is very entertaining with its unique animations style and its vast menagerie of weird and wonderful characters including a certain prisoner with a drill for a penis. A drill. For a penis. It does however venture into crude territory with the aforementioned drill penis guy and a scene in the prison involving poop extraction. but that's almost forgivable when a film is this fun. It's completely over the top and ridiculous but I couldn't help falling in love with it. it is however a little short at around 45 - 50 minutes and could have been longer, although I doubt my eyeballs and brain could have taken much more. Anime fans will want to see this if only for the animation and pure insanity on display. But DEAD LEAVES is also very violent with the screen sometimes being overwhelmed by explosions, blood and bullets. Not suitable for kids. Highly recommended for anime fans and people who love seeing something a little different.

STARSHIP TROOPERS: INVASION (2012) Review

Directed by: Shinji Aramaki

Starring (voices): Luci Christian, David Matranga, David Wald

The bugs are back and I couldn't be happier. Paul Verhoeven's original STARSHIP TROOPERS is undoubtedly a cult classic but unfortunately it's sequels were not so well received. I know from personal experience that the second was a steaming pile of crap and I've heard from many that the third is even worse. Surely the one thing we didn't need was yet another sequel, right? Wrong. STARSHIP TROOPERS: INVASION is so much better than the second film (probably the third too) and in some ways could even be considered superior to the original. It throws the satire of the original aside in favor of more explosions and bug stomping action, but it is still a very enjoyable film.

When the starship John. A. Warden - commandeered by psychic officer Carl Jenkins - suddenly goes dark and ceases communications, General Johnny Rico (Matranga) dispatches an experienced group of soldiers to make contact and hopefully bring the starship back. When the soldiers find and board the ship they stumble into a bloodbath. The entire crew is dead and it is evident that a bug infestation has taken place. They find a sole survivor in Carl Jenkins, who warns them not to turn the ship's power back on, but too late. When the ship is powered back up, a Queen which has taken up residence in the engine room, takes command of the ship. Seemingly thousands of warrior bugs are suddenly set loose on the ship and the starship itself is headed straight towards Earth. It's up to Major Henry 'Hero' Varro (Wald), Captain Carmen Ibanez (Christian) and the rest of the troopers to try and stop the ship from reaching their home planet.

With multiple STARSHIP TROOPERS media around (three movies, some games, an animated TV show etc.) we should probably talk about exactly where this latest instalment fits in. It's not really explained but it seems to be a direct sequel to the first film, with some familiar faces who are a little older and (in most cases) a little wiser.
Rico is now a General, Ibanez is Captain of her own ship and Carl Jenkins is the head of a special ESP unit.
But for the bulk of the film there are a bunch of fresh new faces taking centre stage, and of course they all have their own cute nicknames like Bugspray, Ice Blonde, Ratzass, Trig and so on. Their leader is the highly decorated 'Hero' who has recently been arrested by Jenkins for reasons unknown. Unfortunately most of these characters are pretty one-dimensional and they are all really just a gathering of tired old stereotypes.
But eventually Rico gets right into the action and soon our trio of old friends have a long awaited reunion.

Oh and by the way, did I mention that this is an animated film? That's probably an important thing to mention. But this is that photo realistic kind of animation like you would find in RESIDENT EVIL: DEGENERATION and similar films. And it's actually done pretty damn well. The characters themselves look a little 'off' but as soon as they are wearing their big, bulky mechanical suits they look badass.
The bugs themselves look really good as well, and there are even some new ones here - ones which spit deadly blue plasma from their asses. But mostly they are made up of hundreds or thousands of those standard warrior type bugs. You know, those ones which can tear your head of in a half a second.

Sure the plot isn't very deep and neither are any of the characters, but the action sequences are fast paced and the detail in the CGI is better than I would have expected. There is plenty of bug killing action here and there is even quite a bit of blood and gore. A particularly good scene shows the troopers boarding the starship (which has a very eerie Dead Space vibe) where they are greeted by dismembered bodies floating around in the zero gravity. Nice.

Another drawback I found personally disappointing was the fact that even though Casper Van Dien is named as an executive producer, for some reason he didn't lend his voice to Johnny Rico. That would have been a nice touch for fans of the original. There are a few nods to Verhoeven's film though, and even the gratuitous female nudity and pervy shower shots are reminiscent of that first movie.
All in all STARSHIP TROOPERS: INVASION is pretty damn good. A big surprise for me. If you're a fan of the original then you should definitely see this.

LOCKOUT (2012) Review

Directed by: James Mather, Stephen St. Leger

Starring: Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Joseph Gilgun

Apparently somewhere along the line, somebody decided it would be a great idea to take ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, replace Kurt Russell with Guy Pearce and set it in space. And thus LOCKOUT was born.

In space there is a giant orbiting prison known as MS One, which houses around 500 or so prisoners. Luckily these prisoners are all frozen in stasis, so there is no possible way for them to escape. Right? Wrong. The US President's daughter Emilie (Grace) visits MS One to conduct an investigation into how the prisoners are being treated and whether the stasis has any adverse effects on them. During an interview with one inmate somebody makes the stupid decision to bring a gun along, things go bad and soon every prisoner on board is free. Enter Snow (Pearce), an ex-government agent who has been falsely convicted, and his only chance at freedom is to infiltrate the space prison and rescue Emilie. Simple. There is some subplot involving a briefcase but basically that's the story in a nutshell. The bulk of the film involves Snow and Emilie skillfully evading the prisoners, running through closing doors just in the nick of time and displaying every cliche of every sci-fi/action movie ever. 

You will learn a lot from LOCKOUT too, for example:

Did you know that's it actually pretty easy to convince the President of the US to send in a single man instead of an experienced team of soldiers to free his daughter from a maximum security space prison filled with 500 violent and murderous inmates?

Did you know that futuristic space prisons have a special, easy to use button which unlocks the cells of every single inmate, and said button doesn't even seem to have a password or anything?

Did you know that the phrase "No guns while interrogating the prisoner" roughly translates to "Please bring a gun while interrogating the prisoner"?

Did you know that instead of spending millions of dollars on heat shielding, all you need to enter the Earth's atmosphere is a yellow suit?
I think you get the picture now.

If you haven't already figured it out, LOCKOUT is the kind of brainless action film that might not be original and is far from a masterpiece, but it is at least entertaining. If you're content on not having to think too hard or try and figure out where the movie is going (it's pretty damn predictable) then you can easily sit down and watch this and not regret it too much afterwards. As you might expect there are a lot of explosions, gunfire, average acting, laughable dialogue and over the top action scenes. Just as a side note about the acting though, I actually thought that Joseph Gilgun did a great job as the insane prisoner Hydell and was probably the most impressive actor in the film. The effects for the most part are good, however there is one scene near the beginning which has some horrible looking CGI.

PROMETHEUS 3D (2012) Review

Directed by: Ridley Scott

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Logan Marshall-Green

PROMETHEUS has been one of the year's most anticipated movies and I'm not quite sure where to start here. I actually poster earlier on Facebook that I was a little disappointed with the movie, but since then I've come to realize that my disappointment had more to do with myself mentally hyping up the film to an almost impossibly high standard than to do with the film's shortcomings themselves. It didn't help that I've been reporting on the film through this blog for months and months, being updated on the latest news pretty much every step of the way. Leaked trailers, set photos, promo shots, stills and TV spots, eventually it seemed that I was being bombarded with new stuff every other day. If there's one good piece of advice I can give you before seeing PROMETHEUS it's to try and avoid as much exposure as possible beforehand and go in cold, with not too many preconceptions or expectations.
Even though all of this probably makes PROMETHEUS out to be a bad film, rest assured it is most definitely not. And even though it didn't quite meet my personal expectations, it was definitely worth the wait.
I'll try to make this as spoiler-free as possible.

After a short and interesting opening sequence, PROMETHEUS kicks off on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where a team of archaeologists led by Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Marshall-Green) are conducting a dig. Ancient cave paintings dating back thousands of years are uncovered along with something else quite mysterious which has the archaeologists very excited indeed. The reason for their excitement? This discovery could help them to unlock the secrets behind mankind's origins. The film then cuts to a couple of years later aboard the spaceship PROMETHEUS which has just arrived at its as yet unknown destination after a 2 year journey. The ship's crew which includes the two archaeologists Shaw and Holloway are awakened from suspended animation and debriefed by Meredith Vickers (Theron) on just where they are and why. It's not long before they stumble across a mysterious structure and decide to venture inside.
Will they find what they came for?
Will they finally have a answer to the age-old question; why are we here?
Will they make it out alive?
The only way to find out is to go see for yourself.

The first thing you'll notice about PROMETHEUS is just how amazing it looks. Visually it is incredible from the huge grandiose sweeping landscape shots to the action sequences and everything in between. Everything looks so crisp and clear and detailed and for once (pay attention because I will probably never say this again in my life) I actually think that going 3D was the right choice. Thankfully this movie isn't full of those gimmicky made-for-3D moments where things just fly toward the screen just because they can, the 3D here just helps to make everything on screen seem more tangible and real. In fact if you have the chance I would probably recommend you go see this in IMAX 3D.

The cast do a brilliant job and yes when I say that I actually mean all of them, although the stand-outs for me were definitely Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron. Although some of the characters' actions may seem a little questionable (due to an equally questionable script) all of the actors play their parts convincingly. I mentioned the script being questionable and I guess what I mean is that sometimes some of the characters act very out of character and also there are a lot of plot holes, especially if you're a big ALIEN fan. And speaking of ALIEN, a lot of people will be curious as to whether this is an actual prequel or not because there was some confusion before the film's release. I won't go into it, but suffice it to say that there are plenty links to the aforementioned film and ALIEN fanboys (and girls) will have fun spotting the references. Having said that, if you're not familiar with the ALIEN franchise you can still quite easily sit down and enjoy PROMETHEUS although you will miss out on the references and links and some things may not make a whole lot of sense.

PROMETHEUS looks great and it sounds great. The casting is brilliant as too is the acting. It has a nice mix of practical effects and CGI, there are some kickass action sequences and an interesting plot. On the downside the script is not too great and you will no doubt find a lot of plot holes. I can imagine how much hardcore ALIEN fans are going to pick this film apart, but I still think that PROMETHEUS is pretty damn awesome.

APOLLO 18 (2011) Review

I only just watched this a few days ago and I have to confess I liked it a lot. I know it's been getting a lot of negative reviews, and it's current score on Rotten Tomatoes is only 22%. But I'm a sucker for found footage films (well most of them) and I thought the format was perfect for this movie.

The film insists that after the last manned flight to the moon in 1972 there was another flight, a secret trip funded by the US Department of Defence. A trio of Astronauts were sent to install devices which would be used to spy on the Russians. But when they got there they uncovered a terrible secret. A Russian lander, the remains of a Cosmonaut and a deadly extra-terrestrial life form.

It's all bullshit of course, but the film's website claims it all to be true and that's the only way these found footage films really work. They need to seem real. So whether or not you believe in this conspiracy may just gauge how much you will enjoy watching the film.
I thought the best aspect of APOLLO 18 was the atmosphere it creates. The footage is supposedly from the 70s and was meant to be filmed on the moon, so obviously it isn't going to be great quality. I thought it looked and sounded great, and is probably as close as you could get to reproducing actual lunar footage. And the cameras don't seem out of place at all like they do in some of these found footage movies, because if you're going to the moon you're obviously going to want it on film.
I was disappointed that it didn't feel as tense as I thought it would, and there are plenty of opportunities for frightening moments that could have been better utilized. Even still, you can feel the panic as the Astronauts come under attack, and there is a real sense of hopelessness when they discover that the DOD don't intend to bring them back to earth.
I know that there was a lot of viral marketing before this movie hit theatres, and I was expecting to see a terrifying horror masterpiece. It was far from terrifying and far from being a masterpiece but I still enjoyed it immensely. It felt like more could have been done, but I'd still recommend seeing it at least once.